That’s exactly why you don’t plant yucca (or agaves for that matter) next to pathways. Personally, I think agave stabs are a heck of a lot worse than yucca ones. Also, some kinds of yucca (like Y. rupicola) are a whole lot less stabby, but still look nice.

That’s exactly why you don’t plant yucca (or agaves for that matter) next to pathways. Personally, I think agave stabs are a heck of a lot worse than yucca ones. Also, some kinds of yucca (like Y. rupicola) are a whole lot less stabby, but still look nice.

I have both yucca and agave in my front yard, and the agave has definitely injured me more. For one thing, the sap when I cut it back makes my skin blister horribly if any of it lands on me, even if I evade the pokes and scratches.

I don't dare plant my favorite kind of yucca, which is one wildflower that will definitely always remain wild:

I fell off a pony onto one of those (which wasn't blooming) when I was a kid. Still have the scars on my thigh. When I see those plants in bloom, though, all is forgiven.

morriswalters wrote:I thought 5 foot vertically was a lot when they drove into my house. They ought to get some kind of award for getting the second story.

oh,...yes.You had a car come to visit.How have the repairs gone?

Not too bad, I've actually find it funny, kind of, looking at it from a distance. I'm teaching my grandson in law carpentry. Silver linings and all that. Just when you think the world has your number you find that the RNG has a sense of humor. Physics is hysterical.

morriswalters wrote:I thought 5 foot vertically was a lot when they drove into my house. They ought to get some kind of award for getting the second story.

oh,...yes.You had a car come to visit.How have the repairs gone?

Not too bad, I've actually find it funny, kind of, looking at it from a distance. I'm teaching my grandson in law carpentry. Silver linings and all that. Just when you think the world has your number you find that the RNG has a sense of humor. Physics is hysterical.

I'm so glad Time has revealed the Funny..

We did not Dare to laugh, then.Your front door was gone and you were Not in the mood.

umm...What color is the replacement door?

Life is, just, an exchange of electrons; It is up to us to give it meaning.

We are all in The Gutter.Some of us see The Gutter.Some of us see The Stars.by mr. Oscar Wilde.

Those that want to Know; Know.Those that do not Know; Don't tell them.They do terrible things to people that Tell Them.

The door is still red, he missed it and took out a large window instead. And a porch post. And a lot of wall.

Red...That's nice.I'm glad you had Time to fix the damage before the Winter Weather hit.

I like red and the house was green, it seemed fitting. On being fixed. No such luck. I got it closed, but not fixed. There are some structural issues that the insurance company declined to fix. Which left me on my own. Tomorrow I intend to jack up one corner 1.5 inches. I'll either break the house I won't. News at some future date. Maybe. It's been amusing in a twisted kind of way. It's interesting to find out how much you know versus what you think you do.

The door is still red, he missed it and took out a large window instead. And a porch post. And a lot of wall.

Red...That's nice.I'm glad you had Time to fix the damage before the Winter Weather hit.

I like red and the house was green, it seemed fitting. On being fixed. No such luck. I got it closed, but not fixed. There are some structural issues that the insurance company declined to fix. Which left me on my own. Tomorrow I intend to jack up one corner 1.5 inches. I'll either break the house I won't. News at some future date. Maybe. It's been amusing in a twisted kind of way. It's interesting to find out how much you know versus what you think you do.

Toodles

Gasp! Jacking the house up for less than two inches??Why?

I saw a lot of houses being jacked up and moved.They had walked off their foundations during an earthquake.

Spoiler:

New Regulations were put in place.Houses in earthquake areas MUST be tied to their foundations, now.

The Europeans that built those old houses expected the weight of the house to keep it in place.After a hurricane took the roof off of the garage, my grandfather tied it down with metal straps.

If a house is not tied to its foundation,It really will walk off into the garden.

And; That is rough on the plumbing.

In Fact; I helped jack my own house up, once.It was, kind of, fun. I also used house jacks to move the GreenHouse.

But...If the Floor Struts are weak or broken from the car crash....oh, dear!Yes! Please keep us informed. I will live my DIY dreams vicariously through you.

Life is, just, an exchange of electrons; It is up to us to give it meaning.

We are all in The Gutter.Some of us see The Gutter.Some of us see The Stars.by mr. Oscar Wilde.

Those that want to Know; Know.Those that do not Know; Don't tell them.They do terrible things to people that Tell Them.

A real news stories from my town: A Shop with a Cop event. Held at... Walmart. And EMTs, cops, fire fighters... would shop with younger girls and boys? And Santa came apparently. To make things merry and festive.... And the cops, fire fighters, and EMTs. Had a Pizza Party. W/Some young girls and boys. How funny? If I can find any articles I be sure to post them. <3

Amy Lee wrote:Just what we all need... more lies about a world that never was and never will be.

Azula to Long Feng wrote:Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player.

This sounds pretty mundane, but have a look at where it got itself on Google maps. Zoom in where Mynydd Gelli Wastad Road meets Heol Dywyll, roughly in the middle, and look at the street view.Why? What on earth did the driver think they were doing? I can't see how a diversion route from the M4 Eastbound would take you there.

It's funny because of the relative lack of Sais vowels! (At least it just needed the heddlu to respond, and not an ysbyty due to the cerbyd nwyddau trwm having fell down a slope of many llath onto an ysgol brysur due to mwd ar y ffordd.)

Nice Welsh-ing! I did have to google the latter ones, but I knew the first handful just from living/studying at Swansea University since September. I guess the acronym for HGV isn't used in Welsh though. And no, there weren't any ysgolion nearby, nor anything really apart from a couple of tai and lots of coed. Although we've had plenty of glaw, so there probably was llawer o fw, which wouldn't have helped.

Happens all the fucking time. We get a ton of complaints every time we close a road because suddenly there's a load of heavy traffic going through a village, despite a proper diversion route that sticks to the main roads. We can only sign the diversion, can't force people to use it.

Self driving cars will get stuck in loops when the sat nav acts funny, but they arent going to drive into ditches. Probably.

Problem with robots is that follow directions EXACTLY. As an aside, I'm tempted to write a short story about all the different robot apocalypses due to human error. First is that government bans all GMOs, but due to humans containing non-simian DNA from horizontal gene transfers, robot apocalypse. Next is that government bans all radioactivity, but since humans are naturally radioactive, robot apocalypse. As you can guess, I don't think scientifically illiterate people should be allowed to make laws.

They already are more reliable. Maybe. Problem of small samples, but so far 1 death per 134m miles driven, vs human drivers of 1 per 100m miles. If you remove drunk drivers and such, humans are probably much better than robots, for now, but robots will get better much faster than humans, short of some serious genetic engineering.

Each of those 4 cases was the driver not properly reading the sat nav. Those are all examples of WHY self-driving cars will be better.

Also the first article mentions NOTHING about sat nav except in the headline. And the last 3 articles are like 10 years old.

You do realize that barring more expensive tech and better satellites, GPS is usually only good to +/- 10 feet? And in areas where there is significant multipath (like urban canyons) its more like 30-50 feet (10-20m)? Look at how often a phone will tell you you're driving on the next street over, and give you directions based on that.

"Does this smell like chloroform to you?""Google tells me you are not unique. You are, however, wrong."nɒʜƚɒɿ_nɒɿɘ

Each of those 4 cases was the driver not properly reading the sat nav. Those are all examples of WHY self-driving cars will be better.

Also the first article mentions NOTHING about sat nav except in the headline. And the last 3 articles are like 10 years old.

Recent anecdote: When my wife and I were driving back after visiting my parents over Christmas, we had to leave the main highway to refuel before the long stretch. When we resumed our journey, our car's satnav told us to *not* immediately get back onto the highway, and we figured that the entrance lane must be weirdly located or something, so we followed its directions. Some time later, we realised that it had put us on the *old* highway, which meant we were still heading home but not as quickly and following a much more scenic route. About 45 minutes later, we hit a T-junction. The car said turn right to go through a town, my wife checked Google maps and it said turn left to get back onto the main highway. We turned left, got back onto the main road, and our car's satnav readjusted by telling us to take the very next exit, go through another small town, and get back onto the old highway. When it finally figured out that we were sticking to the new road the rest of the way, it reluctantly readjusted again and wiped about half an hour off the expected travel time.

eran_rathan wrote:You do realize that barring more expensive tech and better satellites, GPS is usually only good to +/- 10 feet? And in areas where there is significant multipath (like urban canyons) its more like 30-50 feet (10-20m)? Look at how often a phone will tell you you're driving on the next street over, and give you directions based on that.

GPS is only a first-approximation navigation tool. When combined with crowd-sourced data the accuracy goes up way further.

To take ConMan's example, within a few years his experience will be self-correcting. His sat-nav would learn from its mistake and not only drive him the correct route next time but inform everyone else to drive the correct route too. This is the second-wave of the information revolution: The revolution of Big Data. The benefits are enormous (as are the dangers, as ucim will happily point out to anyone who asks )

This is how AI can rapidly evolve beyond human capabilities: Humans are self-contained and every person has to be trained from scratch. If I learn to drive better that doesn't in any way help you to learn to drive better. There is a limit to how good a person can become in one lifetime. But once a car learns to drive better, all cars based on the same technology learn to drive better. AI has no limit.

ConMan wrote:Recent anecdote: When my wife and I were driving back after visiting my parents over Christmas, we had to leave the main highway to refuel before the long stretch. When we resumed our journey, our car's satnav told us to *not* immediately get back onto the highway, and we figured that the entrance lane must be weirdly located or something, so we followed its directions. Some time later, we realised that it had put us on the *old* highway, which meant we were still heading home but not as quickly and following a much more scenic route. About 45 minutes later, we hit a T-junction. The car said turn right to go through a town, my wife checked Google maps and it said turn left to get back onto the main highway. We turned left, got back onto the main road, and our car's satnav readjusted by telling us to take the very next exit, go through another small town, and get back onto the old highway. When it finally figured out that we were sticking to the new road the rest of the way, it reluctantly readjusted again and wiped about half an hour off the expected travel time.

(gasp!) Are you saying the car wanted to take the slow way home?It sounds like a Toy that does not want to be turned off and put away.Like a child, it wants to stay up and play. ...That's funny.

Life is, just, an exchange of electrons; It is up to us to give it meaning.

We are all in The Gutter.Some of us see The Gutter.Some of us see The Stars.by mr. Oscar Wilde.

Those that want to Know; Know.Those that do not Know; Don't tell them.They do terrible things to people that Tell Them.

Happens all the fucking time. We get a ton of complaints every time we close a road because suddenly there's a load of heavy traffic going through a village, despite a proper diversion route that sticks to the main roads. We can only sign the diversion, can't force people to use it.

I guessed that, heck we had a pretty large bus end up in our cul-de-sac because the driver hadn't been told about the temporary route when the main road through our village was closed.In the case I originally posted, it just didn't seem like a logical route to take as a diversion. I guess it didn't want to go through the city center, so went the rural way and got stuck.

I'm very familiar with these types of stories unfortunately. There have been countless repetitions, mainly of less-aware drivers at skewed crossings in the dark where the combination of circumstances leads to mistakes. Even so, I still can't stop myself thinking "Really, though?" whenever I hear them.

elasto wrote:GPS is only a first-approximation navigation tool. When combined with crowd-sourced data the accuracy goes up way further.

Even then, there's no guarantee two feuding companies won't strand you somewhere just because they can. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I drove cross-country from Tennessee to Arizona to Washington and then took a ferry to Alaska when she moved here.

This was during the time when Google and Apple were having a pissing match over their respective mapping technologies. She had talked me into getting an iPhone at some point, but I still trusted Google Maps more than I trusted Apple. As it turns out, Google Maps on iPhones back then would straight-up lie to you. My wife still won't let me navigate due to the "Dallas incident."

If you like Call of Cthulhu and modern government conspiracy, check out my Delta Green thread.Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments.

Yablo wrote:Even then, there's no guarantee two feuding companies won't strand you somewhere just because they can. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I drove cross-country from Tennessee to Arizona to Washington and then took a ferry to Alaska when she moved here.

This was during the time when Google and Apple were having a pissing match over their respective mapping technologies. She had talked me into getting an iPhone at some point, but I still trusted Google Maps more than I trusted Apple. As it turns out, Google Maps on iPhones back then would straight-up lie to you. My wife still won't let me navigate due to the "Dallas incident."

I dunno. That sounds like it has class action lawsuit written all over it.

If Apple deliberately slowing old devices to preserve battery life is actionable (and I think it is), a company deliberately placing people in physical danger sounds far more actionable.

(I'm very much an OS Map person, preferably. If not using some old Bartholemews ones, fabric-based and frequently featuring dotted lines with labels saying "Roman Road (Under Construction)".)

Here's an interesting junction, if the over-complicated URL gives you what it does me*. See the No Lorries sign perpendicular to the road you're on? That's a depiction of a Satellite at the top. Move slightly in towards the junction and then take the arrow into the junction, and you'll see the junction transform (currently!) into the Streetview imagery taken prior to the road being downgraded/now being a dead-end.

(* - Testing, it doesn't hold the power of its Streetviewness in that, and I can't be bothered to try to find out if it can. You'll have to work that bit out yourself, to see all that I mean.)